COST Dividend Calculator
Dividend growth rate (CAGR)
| Year | Yield | Div / share | Annual income | Yield on cost | Cumulative income | Portfolio value | Shares |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.4% | $5.41 | $52.00 | 0.4% | $52.00 | $14,909 | 11.72 |
| 2 | 0.4% | $5.79 | $67.92 | 0.5% | $119.92 | $20,923 | 13.47 |
| 3 | 0.3% | $6.20 | $83.51 | 0.5% | $203.43 | $28,284 | 14.91 |
| 4 | 0.3% | $6.63 | $98.91 | 0.5% | $302.34 | $37,291 | 16.10 |
| 5 | 0.3% | $7.10 | $114.25 | 0.5% | $416.59 | $48,308 | 17.07 |
| 6 | 0.2% | $7.59 | $129.67 | 0.5% | $546.25 | $61,780 | 17.88 |
| 7 | 0.2% | $8.13 | $145.28 | 0.5% | $691.54 | $78,251 | 18.54 |
| 8 | 0.2% | $8.69 | $161.22 | 0.6% | $852.76 | $98,384 | 19.09 |
| 9 | 0.1% | $9.30 | $177.59 | 0.6% | $1,030 | $122,991 | 19.54 |
| 10 | 0.1% | $9.95 | $194.50 | 0.6% | $1,225 | $153,062 | 19.91 |
Year 1-10 dividend income (preview)
Based on a $10,000 initial investment with $200.00 monthly contributions, DRIP on.
Historical dividends per share
Recent dividends
| Ex-date | Cash amount | TTM yield | Fwd yield | Share price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-05-01 | $1.47 | 0.7% | 0.6% | $1,012 |
| 2026-01-30 | $1.30 | 0.7% | 0.6% | $940.25 |
| 2025-10-31 | $1.30 | 0.7% | 0.6% | $911.45 |
| 2025-08-01 | $1.30 | 0.5% | 0.5% | $952.52 |
| 2025-05-02 | $1.30 | 0.5% | 0.5% | $1,008 |
| 2025-02-07 | $1.16 | 0.4% | 0.4% | $1,044 |
| 2024-11-01 | $1.16 | 2.2% | 0.5% | $877.31 |
| 2024-07-26 | $1.16 | 2.5% | 0.6% | $817.60 |
| 2024-04-25 | $1.16 | 2.8% | 0.6% | $721.86 |
| 2024-02-01 | $1.02 | 2.8% | 0.6% | $704.48 |
| 2023-12-27 | $15.00 | 2.8% | 9.0% | $666.80 |
| 2023-11-02 | $1.02 | 0.7% | 0.7% | $555.97 |
Source: Polygon.io. Last 12 dividend distributions, most recent first. TTM yield = sum of last 12 months of payments ÷ share price on ex-date. Forward yield = this payment × detected payout frequency ÷ share price on ex-date.
About COST
Costco Wholesale Corporation — ticker COST — is the largest warehouse-club retailer in the United States and one of the most distinctive dividend payers in the US equity market. The distinctive feature is what every income-focused reader needs to understand before modeling the income line: Costco runs a two-track distribution policy. The first track is a regular quarterly dividend, raised annually for approximately twenty consecutive years (the streak began in 2004). The second track is a series of large one-time special dividends declared roughly every two to four years, on top of the regular quarterly payments. Recent special-dividend events: $5 per share in December 2012, $7 per share in February 2015, $10 per share in December 2020, and $15 per share in January 2024. Each of these special distributions has historically delivered the equivalent of several years of regular-dividend payments in a single cash event, and the timing and size are at management's discretion rather than on a published cadence. Treating Costco as a normal quarterly-only dividend stock understates the total cash return; treating the specials as a reliable forecastable income stream overstates the certainty, because the next special-dividend date is unknown.
The calculator on this page projects income from the REGULAR quarterly dividend only. Special dividends are excluded from the projection because their timing and size are unpredictable — they can be announced years apart, and the per-share amount has varied from $5 to $15 across the historical sample. A reader who wants to think about expected total cash return should treat the calculator's projection as the floor — the baseline regular-dividend income — and add a separate mental allowance for the possibility of future special dividends, sized roughly to historical experience but not built into the projection. That conservative approach is the structurally honest framing for a forward income model.
Costco operates in the Consumer Defensive sector, specifically warehouse-club retail. The business model is built around the membership fee: customers pay an annual membership (Gold Star and Executive tiers) that funds a meaningful share of operating income, and in exchange access a no-frills warehouse format selling groceries, consumer electronics, apparel, gasoline, and a rotating selection of discretionary items at razor-thin retail margins. The fee structure produces an unusually recurring revenue stream — high single-digit-percent renewal rates that persist across cycles. The company operates over eight hundred warehouses globally, with the largest presence in the US, Canada, and Mexico, and a growing footprint in Asia.
The dividend mandate exists but is not the central piece of Costco's capital-return story. The regular quarterly yield sits at roughly half of one percent — well below most dividend-focused holdings — because Costco's share price has compounded faster than its per-share dividend for an extended period. The special dividends function as a periodic return of excess balance-sheet cash beyond what the regular dividend, buybacks, and capex absorb. Expense ratio is not applicable to individual stocks — the figure you'll see in the calculator above is zero. The regular dividend has not been cut in the post-2004 streak window, and the specials are bonus distributions on top of the regular payments rather than alternatives.
How COST pays dividends
Costco pays a regular cash dividend quarterly, on a February–May–August–November cadence. The board declares the per-share amount each quarter; the ex-dividend date typically falls in the first or second week of the first month of the cycle, and the pay date falls roughly two weeks after the ex-date. Holders who own shares as of the close on the day before the ex-date receive the dividend; holders who buy on or after the ex-date wait for the next quarterly payment. On the ex-date the share price drops by approximately the distribution amount on the open, reflecting the fact that the company has paid the cash out of its balance sheet. This regular quarterly cadence is what the calculator on this page projects from — the model assumes a steady quarterly per-share amount growing at a specified annual rate, and it does not project any future special dividends.
Special dividends, when they occur, are announced separately by the board with their own dedicated ex-date and pay-date schedule. The most recent specials — $5 (2012), $7 (2015), $10 (2020), $15 (2024) — have typically been announced one to three months before the pay date, with the ex-date set a few weeks before the pay date in the standard way. The share price drops by approximately the special-dividend amount on the ex-date, in the same mechanical way as any other dividend. The crucial difference is unpredictability of timing and size: there is no committed cadence, no published policy, and no formula that maps balance-sheet metrics to a special-dividend amount. A reader modeling Costco's income stream should treat the regular quarterly track as the contractual-style commitment and the specials as periodic bonus events.
Holders who DRIP through their broker receive additional shares purchased at the prevailing market price around the pay date. Most major brokers offer fractional-share DRIP for Costco, so the full cash distribution — both the regular quarterly amount and any special-dividend payment — is reinvested. Costco's dividends are qualified for the long-term capital-gains rate in taxable accounts; the same treatment applies to both regular and special distributions. In tax-advantaged accounts the qualified-dividend treatment is moot. Special-dividend events can produce a large taxable-income spike in the year of receipt, which is worth keeping in mind for tax-planning purposes in taxable accounts.
Recent growth pattern for the regular dividend: Costco has typically raised the quarterly per-share amount once per year, with the new rate taking effect on the dividend payment following the spring announcement. The size of the annual hike has historically run in the mid-to-high single digits — faster than at most mature dividend stocks. The calculator on this page uses a recent dividend growth rate to project the income line forward; the projection captures the regular quarterly dividend only, not the special dividends.
Who COST suits
Costco suits investors who want exposure to one of the highest-quality consumer-defensive businesses in US equities and who view periodic special-dividend events as a welcome bonus on top of share-price appreciation, rather than as the primary reason to hold. The regular yield is too low — typically under one percent — to make Costco a meaningful current-income holding for an investor whose objective is cash flow. The structural case for COST in a portfolio is the long-run share-price compounding of the warehouse-club business model, with the regular dividend functioning as a small steady payment and the special dividends as periodic large one-time additions. Framing Costco as a growth-with-payout holding rather than as an income holding is the structurally honest characterization.
The most useful peer comparison is COST versus WMT — the two largest scaled-retail names in US equities, with dividend shapes that diverge sharply. Walmart pays a higher regular yield (around one percent) with a fifty-plus-year streak and no special-dividend track; Costco pays a lower regular yield (under one percent) with a twenty-year streak and a periodic special-dividend bonus track. Walmart's price appreciation has historically been moderate while Costco's has been substantial; this difference in share-price compounding is the primary reason the regular yield is lower at Costco. Many income-oriented portfolios hold WMT for the long-streak signal; portfolios with a stronger growth-or-quality tilt often hold COST for share-price compounding and special-dividend optionality.
As with any single-stock position, this content is educational only; it is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold Costco, and individual circumstances vary. Retail-sector-specific risks — including the durability of membership-renewal rates through consumer-spending cycles, e-commerce competitive pressure on warehouse retail, and the eventual succession-planning question on Costco's distinctive culture-led operating model — should be weighed against the long-run quality-compounding record.
Hypothetical scenarios
Scenario 1: $10,000 invested in Costco at the start of 2010
Consider a hypothetical purchase of $10,000 of Costco stock at the start of 2010. At that point the regular-dividend streak was six years old (dating from 2004), the warehouse model had survived the 2008–2009 recession without disruption to the dividend, and the next fifteen years were about to deliver one of the most consistent compound-return profiles in US large-cap equities. The early-2010 entry price implied a per-share figure in the high fifties, and the initial $10,000 would have purchased roughly one hundred seventy shares.
Holding from 2010 through to the present, with quarterly dividends reinvested via DRIP, four forces compound together. First, the per-share regular dividend grew each year as Costco maintained the annual-increase pattern — mid-to-high single-digit hikes. Second, the share count grew through regular-dividend DRIP, though the contribution is moderate because the entry yield is low. Third, the share count grew further through reinvestment of the periodic specials: $7 (2015), $10 (2020), $15 (2024) — each of these specials, reinvested via DRIP, added a meaningful one-time share-count jump on top of the steady regular-dividend reinvestment. Fourth, and dominantly, the share price compounded substantially across the multi-decade window — Costco's stock has been one of the strongest compounders in US large-cap retail, driven by membership-fee growth, international expansion, and consistent margin discipline.
The illustrative outcome is not a precise dollar figure. It depends on the exact reinvestment prices, dividend taxes paid along the way in a taxable account, and the specific entry and exit timing. The structural point is that Costco's total return shape has been dominated by share-price appreciation, with the regular dividend as a steady minor contributor and the periodic specials adding three large one-time cash events that — when reinvested via DRIP — produced visible step-ups in share count. The total cash received from dividends across the holding window (regular plus three specials) is meaningfully larger than what the regular dividend alone implied, but the dominant contributor to total return remains the share-price line. COST is offered as a structural illustration, not a forecast — especially not a forecast of when or how large the next special might be.
Scenario 2: $50,000 today plus $500/month for 20 years
Consider a hypothetical accumulation strategy in Costco: $50,000 starting capital, plus $500 per month added on a regular cadence for 20 years. The calculator on this page can model this exactly — set Initial investment to $50,000, Extra contribution to $500, Contribution frequency to Monthly, time horizon to 20 years, and leave DRIP on. The projection captures the regular quarterly dividend only; it does NOT include any assumed future special-dividend payments. The structural reason for excluding specials is that their timing and per-share amount are unpredictable — the historical sample shows specials roughly every two-to-four years at sizes ranging from $5 to $15 per share, but the next special-dividend event is undated and undetermined.
The mechanics: each month, the new $500 buys additional shares at the current price, adding to the share count and therefore to next quarter's regular dividend. Each quarter the dividend received is reinvested. Because Costco's regular-dividend yield is very low — typically under one percent — the DCA contribution component dominates share-count growth, with regular-dividend DRIP contributing only marginally. Over 20 years this produces a position whose annual regular-dividend cash distribution is modest in dollar terms relative to the position size, because both the entry yield and the per-share growth rate work from a small base.
What's worth focusing on is that the calculator's output represents the floor case — regular-dividend income with no special-dividend boost. The realistic expected total cash return is meaningfully higher because specials, although unpredictable in timing, have historically delivered several years of regular-dividend income in a single event approximately every two-to-four years. The honest framing is: the calculator's projection is the floor; the upside from specials is a real but uncertain bonus track that historical data suggests will continue but cannot be precisely forecast. Real outcomes depend on Costco's future regular- and special-dividend policy, membership-fee growth, tax treatment, and the broader path of US equity markets. Educational only; not a forecast.
Sources & methodology
Dividend history and price data come from Polygon.io's reference and aggregates endpoints. Forward yield is computed as the sum of the most recent four cash distributions divided by the previous-close share price. The dividend growth rate shown on this page is the compound annual growth rate of total annual distributions across the available history in this snapshot.
Last updated: 2026-05-15.
Information here is for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Past dividend history does not guarantee future payments. Verify all figures with the issuer or a registered financial advisor before making investment decisions.